The Gay Cockade eBook

“He says that no evil can teach you while you
wear the beads,” Christopher told Anne.

The old man, with his eyes on her intent face, spoke
again. “What you think is evil—­cannot
be evil,” Christopher interpreted. “The
gods know best.”

They moved toward the inner tent.

“Are you tired?” Christopher asked.
“We don’t have to stay.”

“I want to stay,” and so they went in,
and presently with a blare of trumpets the great parade
began. They looked down on men and women in Roman
chariots, men on horseback, women on horseback, on
elephants, on camels—­painted ladies in
howdahs, painted ladies in sedan chairs—­Cleopatra,
Pompadour—­history reduced to pantomime,
color imposed upon color, glitter upon glitter, the
beat of the tom-tom, the crash of the band, the thin
piping, as the white-turbaned snake-charmer showed
in the press of the crowd.

Christopher’s eyes went to Anne. She was
leaning forward, one hand clasping the silver beads.
He would have given much to know what was in her mind.
How little she was and how young. And how he wanted
to get her away from the thing which hung suspended
over her like a keen-edged sword.

But to get her away—­how? He could
never get her away from her thoughts. Unless....

Suddenly he heard her laughing. Two clowns were
performing with a lot of little dogs. One of
the dogs was a poodle who played the fool. “What
a darling,” Anne was saying.

There was more than they could look at—­each
ring seemed a separate circus—­one had to
have more than a single pair of eyes. Christopher
was blind to it all—­except when Anne insisted,
“Look—­look!”

Six acrobats were in the ring—­four men
and two women. Their tights were of a clear shimmering
blue, with silver trunks. One could not tell the
women from the men, except by their curled heads, and
their smaller stature. They were strong, wholesome,
healthy. Christopher knew the quality of that
health—­hearts that pumped like machines—­obedient
muscles under satin skins. One of the women whirled
in a series of handsprings, like a blue balloon—­her
body as fluid as quicksilver. If he could only
borrow one-tenth of that endurance for Anne—­he
might keep her for years.

Then came Pantaloon, and Harlequin and Columbine.
The old man was funny, but the youth and the girl
were exquisite—­he, diamond-spangled and
lean as a lizard, she in tulle skirts and wreath of
flowers. They did all the old tricks of masks
and slapping sticks, of pursuit and retreat, but they
did them so beautifully that Anne and Christopher sat
spellbound—­what they were seeing was not
two clever actors on a sawdust stage, but love in
its springtime—­girl and boy—­dreams,
rapture, radiance.

Then, in a moment, Columbine was dead, and Harlequin
wept over her—­frost had killed the flower—­love
and life were at an end.

Christopher was drawing deep breaths. Anne was
tense. But now—­Columbine was on her
feet, and Harlequin was blowing kisses to the audience!